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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Harbaugh, 49ers Will Have Hard Time Keeping Assistant Coaches

There is a different side to Black Monday in the NFL, the
ceremonial day of coaching staff firings that occur one day after the final
week of the season. There are currently seven openings for a head coach around
the NFL, and there are successful teams with successful coordinators that are
coveted to fill them.

Among the
many teams’ wish lists of head coaching candidates are the 49ers. Offensive
coordinator Greg Roman and defensive coordinator Vic Fangio have already been
mentioned as serious candidates to land several head coaching jobs throughout
the NFL, and special teams coach Brad Seely is an attractive option as well.

Roman’s
name was immediately tossed in the middle of several team’s head coaching wish
lists on Monday.

According
to FOX 29’s Howard Eskin, via Twitter,
the Philadelphia Eagles have Roman on their list.

In the same
way, Vic Fangio has been thrown into the conversation for a head coaching
position in the NFL. He has become one of the best creative minds among defensive
coordinators in the league, and his experience as defensive coordinator for the
Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans puts him into the
category of a qualified candidate.

“Nobody has
called, or even approached me about anything, so I don’t even worry about it,”
Fangio said. “To me, it’s nonexistent. If it ever happens, it happens, and
we’ll deal with it at that time.”

Jim
Harbaugh seems to understand the caliber of his assistants, and the demand the
NFL has for up-and-coming football minds that can turn a franchise around.

The 49ers
have roughly two weeks between games, but needy teams are allowed to reach out
to assistant coaches of playoff teams during the first week. However,
interviews cannot take place after wildcard weekend concludes, and teams like
the 49ers do not have permission to deny coaches from talking to teams. Roman,
Fangio and Seely are expected to be considered by teams this week.

“Yeah, they do," Harbaugh
said in response to whether or not his assistant coaches have desires to be
head coaches. "I've always tried to hire coaches that had that ambition. I
like guys like that -- that have those ambitions, those hopes, those
dreams."

Roman
and Fangio are more than qualified to become head coaches for NFL teams, but it
simply comes down to who stands in front of them, as far as head-coaching
candidates are concerned.

Andy
Reid, Ken Whisenhunt and Lovie Smith, who were all fired on Black Monday, are
expected to land jobs with teams sooner rather than later. That could easily be
a road block for assistants like Roman and Fangio, who would become first-time
head coaches.

The
NFL’s newly-acquired demand for young and creative college football minds may
also be a road block for the 49ers assistants. Like Jim Harbaugh was with the
49ers, Penn State’s Bill O’Brien, Oregon’s Chip Kelly and Syracuse’s Doug
Marrone all have the football intelligence to become an NFL head coach, and
many teams could lean towards the college ranks instead of choosing coaches with
one-track minds in their respective specialties.

If
Roman, Fangio and Seely are to be chosen as head coaches this offseason, it
would be because they have the experience needed to run a team at the highest
level. However, it may take the perfect situation for any of Harbaugh’s
assistants to leave. Fangio has been the head of arguably the best defense in
all of football since he arrived in San Francisco, and he also has stars
Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman locked up through the 2016 season. Roman is
one of the highest-paid assistant coaches in the NFL, which means the
head-coaching job would have to be a very good situation for him to accept. The
offensive schemes he could draw up with Colin Kaepernick cannot be found with
many other quarterbacks in the NFL.

Whatever
decisions both the 49ers’ assistant coaches make, and the ones the head
coach-seeking teams make, Roman, Fangio and Seely are coveted in the NFL --
which will only grow in demand as seasons pass.

There
are several situations this offseason in which these coaches could be sticking
around San Francisco, but the 49ers’ success in back-to-back seasons has NFL
teams looking to them as the standard for success, and their coaches as the
answer to their franchise’s problems.